Hot Alphas (Wounded Warriors #3) - Lora Leigh

The night had finally wound down, the last customer urged out the door and the Broken Bar was closed up for the night.

Standing next to the counter, Erin Masters surveyed the pristine area critically, ensuring everything was ready for the next night.

The head bartender and club manager, Jake Manning, had left her in charge of cleaning and restocking the various bottles of drinks kept on hand. The large crowds known to descend on the nightclub on any given night left no time to replace bottles. And he was damned picky about making certain everything, down to the last speck of dust, was cleaned away and the serving area ready to go the next evening.

Glancing to the mirrored wall behind the wide counter she found the neon BROKEN BAR sign. Her gaze moved to the camera eye in the center of it, then gave it her customary wink. She knew the girl that worked the security recordings. The wink was a nightly salute. Gabby would roll her eyes, Erin knew, and remember the night they’d had one drink too many, and revealed how each of them had become fixated on one of the Broken Bar’s security agents.

For Gabby, it was Iron.

For Erin, it was the hard, tough Turk Rogan.

Folding the damp bar towel she’d used to clean the wood bar, Erin pushed it into the small plastic bag of towels used that night and tied the bag closed. Picking it up she pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen, finally relaxing at the thought of going home for the night.

Leaving the bag at the back door for morning pickup she made her way back to the front to check everything one last time. Jake could become highly critical if anything in the bartending section wasn’t just right. She sure as hell didn’t want him tearing her ass as he’d torn the last assistant’s. That one he’d sent running from the club in tears as she quit on the spot.

Flipping the kitchen light out, she stepped through the swinging doors once again and almost ran face-first into one of the nicest stretches of chests she’d ever beheld.

Powerful, not too wide, but rippling beneath the black T-shirt he wore. Her fingers itched to smooth across the expanse of powerful muscles.

He made other parts just ache.

“Turk.” She stepped back, looking up into the rough-hewn, hardened features of the security agent working cleanup with her.

Dark, chocolate-brown eyes were set into a brooding expression that gave him a hard, savage look. A sexy rough-hewn toughness that just took a girl’s breath away.

His gaze lowered to her lips. That look made her mouth go dry. It made her sex wet.

“Erin.” Deep, whispering of sensual delights and wicked knowledge, that voice sent shivers working down her spine as his gaze lifted to hers once again. “Have you finished up here?”

He stepped back, slowly, allowing her to ease from the doorway to the dimly lit bar area as she looked around one last time.

“Let’s hope I am.” She grinned back, smoothing her hands down the side of the short, black skirt she wore.

Turk’s gaze flickered down her body before coming back to hers, the shadow of something hungry in his eyes caused her heartbeat to pick up, racing in excitement as she swallowed nervously.

“Everything looks great.” He nodded, finally glancing around himself, his eyes narrowing. “Jake shouldn’t be able to bitch—no matter how much he loves doing it.”

Amusement gleamed in his eyes as they met hers once again.

“Good.” She glanced over the area again though. “Perhaps I’ll survive my first night closing.”

“You’ll survive,” he promised as though he’d already decided that on his own. “If you’re ready I’ll walk you out to your car. The rest of the waitresses have left and I’m ready to head out myself.”

“I just need to stop in the lounge and collect my purse.” She was already turning for the exit from the tending area, all too aware of the fact that he was walking behind her.

And he walked silently, too. There wasn’t so much as a whisper of his footsteps. Quiet, intense, his scarred face was normally implacable, his voice deep. He was the epitome of the type of agent her stepfather preferred as security personnel for the nightclubs that worked beneath the Covert Information Network.

The Broken Bar was one of those establishments, while five of the ten security personnel were longtime agents of the network. Ex-military, Rangers in this case, most of them wounded in some way that had ended their